Apparatus paying off undulatory wires



G. N. MENAsvor-'F APPARATUS PAYING OFFl UNDULATORY WIRES Oct. 6, 1970 Filed June` 27, 196e 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 1N VEN TUR.

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lllllllllllllll I-`--""""- GEoRGE N. MENASOFF BY /l/5 Milf Oct. 6, 1970 G. N. Ml-:NsoFF A 3,531,962

APPARATUS PAYING OFF UNDULATORY WIRES Filed June 27, 1968 2 sheets-sheet 2 l' V 8 '///////,H,. 37 v Fig. 2

,/NvENTQR. GEORGE N. ME NASOF;

Y ff/1% m um United States Patent O APPARATUS PAYING OFF UNDULATORY WIRES George N. Menasoff, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., assignor to Anaconda Wire and Cable Company, a corporation of Delaware Filed .lune 27, 1968, Ser. No. 740,594 Int. Cl. B21c 23/26 U.S. Cl. 72-17 4 Claims ABSTRACT F THE DISCLOSURE An apparatus forms undulations in cable sheath wires and pays them to an extruder in free catenaries, the position of which is used to control the speed of the forming rolls.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In application 'Sei'. No. 592,893, now Pat. 3,474,189, assigned to the assignee of the present invention there is described an electric cable having a plurality of undulatory drain wires embedded in the cable jacket. 1n tne manufacture of such cables the undulatory wires are fed into a cable extruder along with the jacketing stock but until the present invention there has been no satisfactory known method of paying 0E such wires in a uniform manner without either distorting the undulations or misaligning them on the cable, either radially or circumferentially. To understand the significance of my invention it must be realized that paying undulatory wires into an extruder presents many more problems than paying ordinary straight wires because, for one thing, a variation in tension that would be insignificant for a straight wire will have a large effect in changing the undulatory pattern of the present wire. Also the storage of undulatory wire on pay-off reels presents problems in snarling beyond those that are present for straight wire, and requires much more reel storage space. Furthermore, whereas some spiralling and twisting of straight wire is quite tolerable and, indeed, long-lay twisting of straight Wires would not even be detectable, the opposite is true for undulatory wires where the vplane of the undulations must remain uniform for each wire and any twisting will be immediately apparent.

SUMMARY I have invented an apparatus that pays undulatory wires to a cable extnuder from an upstream station to a downstream station. This appartus comprises means guiding a plurality of straight wires to my apparatus and a pair of intermeshing forming rolls mounted downstream of these guiding means that form undulations in the wires. My apparatus further comprises at least one tensioning roll mounted downstream of the forming roll and having a plurality of radial slots fitting the rundulatory wires and guiding them rwith the planes of their undulations radial to the tensioning roll which is mounted in a position that varies in response to the tension in the wires.

My apparatus further comprises means to drive the forming rolls, means that vary the speed of the driving means in response to the position of the tensioning roll and directing means downstream of the tensioning roll distributing the wires through slots, substantially parallel to the radial slots in the tensioning roll, adjacent to the cable. In preferred embodiments the tensioning roll is mounted on a dancer arm, the angular displacement of which is amplified by mechanical multiplier means to control the speed of the forming rolls, the wires hang in free catenaries upstream of the directing means.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 shows a side View of my apparatus.

3,531,962 Patented Oct. 6, 1970 lCC FIG. 2 shows an enlarged front view of certain of the features of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 shows a front View of a directing plate comprised in my apparatus.

FIG. 4 shows an end view of a guider comprised in certain embodiments of my apparatus.

FIG. 5 shows a section of the guider of FIG. 4.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIG. l a plurality, which in the illustrated embodiment numbers six, straight wires 11 are passed through a perforated guide plate 12 from a supply (not shown) of such wires into a pairof intermeshing grooved rolls, 13, 14 which form a continuous series of undulations 16 in the wires 11. The rolls 13, 1'4 are mounted in a roll stand 17 on a table 18 and are driven by a motor and gear reducer 19 acting through the pulleys 21, Z2 and belt 23.

A pair of tensioning rolls 24, 25 with narrow radial slots 26 are mounted on dancer arm 27 comprised of two brackets 28, 29 mounted on the shaft of a speed reducer serving as a mechanical multiplier 31 which is coupled by means of a coupling 32 to a potentiometer 33 by means of which the speed of motor 19 is controlled in a known manner. Electrical wires 34 connect the potentiometer 33 to the motor 19 in such a manner that the speed of the motor, and thus the speed of the forming rolls 13, 14 are controlled by the position of the dancer arm.

I have preferred to drive the roll 13 and have this, in turn, drive the roll 14 but it will be understood that both rolls might be driven, and that since the rolls 13, 14 serve to draw the wires from their supply the speed of wire delivery is governed by the speed of the forming rolls '13, 14.

I have preferred to use a pair of slotted rolls to tension and guide undulatory wires which, after passing through the forming rolls are designated by the numeral 36 but it will be understood that if the slots 26 in the roll 24 are sufficiently deep to accommodate the spread of the undulations 16 the roll 25 might not be slotted or might be omitted or replaced by a nonrotating restraining member.

On leaving the forming rolls 13, 14 I prefer to pass the Wires 36 through guide tubes 37 from which they fall in a free catenary curve 38 to a slotted plate 39 that serves as a directing means, directing the wire in a plane of a cable 41 around Iwhich they are to be distributed by means of slots 42 (FIGS. 4 and 5) in a guider tube 43 through which the cable 41 passes in the usual manner during an extrusion operation. The guider tube 43 is enclosed within an extruder head 44 shown in FIG. 1. The plate 39 has a plurality of slots 46 in a horizontal line equally spaced on either side of a central opening 47 for the cable 41. The slots -46 are vertical and for-m points on the catenary curve with the vertical slots 26 in the roll 24 and the line of intermeshing of the forming rolls 13, 14.

Any change in the speed of the extruder would have the' eliect of changing the slope of the catenary 38 and of moving the dancer arm 27. lf the arm is raised, the potentiometer is adjusted in a known manner to increase the speed of the forming rolls 13, 14 and if the arm is lowered, to decrease this speed. Instead of employing the dancer rolls other means of detecting changes in the catenary 38 such as photo electric cells may be used within the scope of my invention but my slotted roll 26 has the advantage that it keeps the undulatory wires 36 in alignment with the slots 46 and has performed in a satisfactory manner at high speeds of cable production.

I have invented a new and useful apparatus of which the foregoing description has been exemplary rather than denitive and for which I desire an award of Letters Patent as defined in the following claims.

I claim:

1. An apparatus paying undulatory wires to a cable extruder from an upstream station to a downstream station comprising,

(A) means guiding a plurality of straight wires to said apparatus,

(B) a pair of intermeshing forming rolls mounted downstream of said guiding means forming undulations in said wires,

(C) at least one tensioning roll mounted downstream of said forming rolls,

(a) said tensioning roll having a plurality of radial slots fitting said undulatory wires and guiding said Wires with the planes of said undulations radial to said tensioning roll,

(b) said tensioning roll being mounted in a position varying in response to the tension in said Wires,

(D) means driving said forming rolls,

(E) means varying the speed of said driving means responsive to said position, and

(F) directing means downstream of said tensioning roll distributing said wires adjacent to said cable.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising a dancer arm mounting said tensioning roll'.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 comprising mechanical multiplier means amplifying the displacement of said dancer arm.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said directing means comprises a plate having slots for said wires substantially parallel to said radial slots distributed adjacent to said cable.

References Cited FOREIGN PATENTS 605,585 9/1960 Canada.

LOWELL A. LARSON, Primary Examiner U.S. C1. X.R. 72--196, 270 

